The Canadian Recording Industry Assocation has commissioned two studies from the Canadian research firms Pollara and Environics. Results (from the Environics study): Canadians aged 18 to 29 were three times more likely than the rest of the population to shoplift; 2.7 times more likely to cheat on an exam than those in other groups and 60 per cent of such Canadians are willing to download music from the Internet without paying for it, compared with 29 per cent of the general population.
Unfortunately, 51% of the Environics sample came from online surveys, which more than likely skewed the results. Also, correlation does not prove causation. Correlation is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to make causal inferences with reasonable confidence. Also necessary is an appropriate method of data collection. In this case, it is not possible to gather the sort of experimental data required to assert a causal link (this would require test subjects to shoplift and/or download music while under observation), and therefore the suggestion that the "effect of the piracy, however, does not stop at just music or movies, suggests a study from another polling firm" is completely erroneous.
Eric Bangeman of Arstechnica also notes that despite what the CRIA would have us believe, teenagers and young adults are more likely to shoplift than those outside of those age groups, period. How much more likely? Strangely enough, about three times more likely—the same figure reported in the CRIA-commissioned study. That's regardless of whether they download 300 songs per month or have never gone on the Internet.
[via Arstechnica]
